Paramount Pictures will have one more gift waiting for us under the tree this Christmas. The studio has just announced that Martin Scorsese‘s Silence will hit theaters this December for an awards-qualifying run before expanding nationwide in January. Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, and Adam Driver lead the drama about Jesuit priests in feudal Japan. Read More »

J.A. Bayona‘s adaptation of Patrick Ness‘ A Monster Calls is a five-hankie sobfest, a ruthlessly effective tearjerker even by cancer drama standards. The sniffles start with the premise. A boy (Lewis MacDougall) struggles with his mother’s terminal illness, and calls upon a giant tree monster for help. The monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) forces a deal upon the boy: he’ll tell three stories, after which the boy will have to reveal his own deepest, darkest secret.

Right now we’re in a bit of a dead zone between the blockbuster summer season and awards season, but that’s going to change once Snowden arrives in the middle of September as we start to move into October. However, one of the movies that I was looking forward to quite a bit has just been bumped back from its original October release date into December.

A Monster Calls will no longer arrive this fall, but the good news is that this date looks like a vote of confidence in the film’s quality to potentially be in contention for some awards. Find out the new A Monster Calls release date below. Read More »

While we’re waiting to see if Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating film The Irishmanwill actually come together next year to bring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci together, we have some news regarding the movie that The Departed director already has in the can for this year.

Silence has been a passion project of Martin Scorsese’s for 20 years, and so far all we’ve seen from the movie are a couple imagesfrom 2015 with stars Liam Neeson and Andrew Garfield. But it sounds like once the movie hits theaters (which is expected before the end of the year) there will be plenty to see, because the film could be Martin Scorsese’s longest movie yet.

Who knew that lonely kids befriending gigantic but surprisingly sweet monsters would turn out to be such a big theme of 2016? Earlier this month we got The BFG, Steven Spielberg’s take on the Roald Dahl classic, and next month we’ll get Pete’s Dragon, David Lowery’s updated version of the 1977 Disney film. Then this fall brings A Monster Calls, J.A. Bayona‘s adaptation of Patrick Ness‘ book.

Lewis MacDougall leads the film as Conor, a 12-year-old who’s having a tough time all around. At home, he’s struggling with his mother’s illness; at school, he’s targeted by bullies. He escapes into a fantasy world with the help of a giant tree monster voiced by Liam Neeson. It all sounds very silly when I put it that way, I know, but A Monster Calls looks like a visually sumptuous treat and a real tearjerker to boot. Watch the A Monster Calls trailer below. Read More »

There are no shortage of monsters on the big screen this year, whether they be mutants or ghosts or dragons or other mythical creatures. But not all monsters are out to terrorize people. Some of them appear because they’ve been summoned by sad little boys desperately in need. In Juan Antonio Bayona‘s A Monster Calls, Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall) struggles with bullies at school and his mother’s illness at home. At night he’s visited by a monster in the form of a towering tree (Liam Neeson).

Although A Monster Calls has elements of fantasy and adventure, the real core of the story is Conor’s attempts to cope with the kind of outsized emotions that even adults are ill-equipped to handle: love, loss, and grief. In other words, this beast of a tale looks more likely to break your heart than to make you scream. Watch the latest A Monster Calls teaser trailer below.

In news that should come as no surprise the millions of people who went out of their way to avoid Mortdecai and Transcendence, Forbes has compiled its annual list of the most overpaid actors in Hollywood and Johnny Depp is sitting not-so-pretty at number one. And when you look at the raw numbers, no one else is even close.

However, there’s a little more going on here than a great excuse to kick Johnny Depp and his collection of dumb hats while they’re down. The disparity between what “movie stars” are paid and what their movies end up grossing at the box office is shifting. The age of the movie star is effectively over and you can see this reflected in the full list below.

Liam Neeson can be pretty damn intimidating when he wants to be (see: his entire post-Taken career), so it’s a little ironic that when he finally gets the chance to play a straight-up monster, he… actually doesn’t seem scary at all. The monster of J.A. Bayona‘s A Monster Calls seems plenty big and creepy, sure. But he seems to be a gentler sort, more interested in rescuing lost little boys and making moviegoers cry, than he does unleashing terror upon screaming victims.

Based on the novel by Patrick Ness (who also penned the screenplay), A Monster Calls stars Lewis MacDougall as a young boy who escapes his unhappy reality by slipping into a dark fantasy world. Felicity Jones and Toby Kebbell play his parents. Watch the A Monster Calls teaser trailer after the jump. Read More »

Sadly, the 2015 awards season will be devoid of a film from iconic director Martin Scorsese. But the good news is that his next film is a long-gestating passion project, the adaptation of Shûsaku Endô‘s book Silence, and it’s slated to arrive sometime late in 2016. We’ve already gotten a first look at The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield in the film, but now a new photo of co-star Liam Neeson has surfaced online as well. Check out the Silence first look photo below! Read More »

Just last week, video game company Activision Blizzard announced the formation of their own Activision Blizzard Studios with the intention of bringing some of their biggest titles to film and television. They’re starting off with development of a Call of Duty film franchise as well as a Skylanders television series, but since the company also just picked up the company behind Candy Crush, it was only a matter of time before a Candy Crush movie became a reality.

Well, it took just a few days. Hollywood has already churned out a Candy Crush movie with Liam Neeson in the key role of Mr. Toffee, and a clip has just surfaced online. Read More »